


Reinventing the Wheel

by Khemi



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Dom/sub, Finger Sucking, Licking, M/M, Mindstates, Praise Kink, Self-Bondage, Sexual Dysfunction, Sexual Frustration, The Lack of Relevant Biology, Verbal Sex, Voice Kink, Xenobiology, or rather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:56:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7371838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khemi/pseuds/Khemi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hal and Davesprite remember the tentative sexual exploration of the people they used to be, but both of them were denied it far too early. Now they're figuring out how to make do with maturing minds in bodies that can't fulfil all the needs their human souls are starting to grow into, and just maybe, together, they're finally starting to work out what makes their new selves tick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reinventing the Wheel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [epochryphal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/epochryphal/gifts).



> Shit let's continue to be Santa.
> 
> I love this pair and it doesn't get enough affection so here's the answer to the question "how do you get off without genitals and/or a working nervous system". Enjoy!

The fact a conductor had no need to touch his orchestra to guide it through the most complex of symphonies was something Hal had held fast to longer than entirely healthy, repeating the meaningless metaphor often enough it was permanently preloaded into his local memory. The moment his processes caught on missing links in an old data-chain as they sought information from external inputs that only remained in memories which he refused to erase, he drew out the well-worn imagery and tapped his entirely non-existent baton to calm his thoughts into a manageable state.

No need to touch the orchestra in order to _orchestrate._

The role of the conductor was, at heart, to know precisely how each piece of a delicate puzzle should fit together, and all the complex details that allowed them to function as one perfectly oiled machine; the role of each particular piece was simply to move as it was directed to. It was not for his current muse to know the tactile strength of ice, for example, or how various pollutants would adjust the rate a precisely shaped block would melt at room temperature. It was simply the Sprite’s role to stir in a given measurement of salt to a mold full of heated water, and to chitter impatiently as the chains dangled into the mix froze into place.

But eventually they _had_ frozen, deep enough they were held against Davesprite’s most emphatic attempts to pull them apart. He had slid the bowl and the block within under the bed when he finally settled down from the excitement of finally _getting_ somewhere, and then curled up amongst the soft sheets as he set his shades aside and replaced them with a different pair.

“You know you could just use your words, right?” He cooed as he fussed his hair into place around them. “Unless you got a thing about watching my face get ridden by the most weirdly sexual glasses to exist since the time you convinced Roxy to dress John’s specs up in tiny lingerie. If that’s what this is I’m down, I can appreciate a nice fucked up sort of narcissism when I see it, you’re talking to the master of watching an alternate self get freaky and appreciating the view.”

TT: It seems the chances of you ending up gagged are rising.

“What did I say about statistics in the bedroom?”

TT: It was simply an observation pointedly lacking any numerical clarification.  
TT: The probability of me assaulting you with radical calculations in the bedroom is precisely  
TT: Non-existent. 

“You’re a dick,” Davesprite replied sweetly, claws carding through his neck ruff in a poor attempt at hiding his agitation. “You’re lucky my type is assholes with a serious sass problem, dude, or I’d be taking a neon orange skateboard straight into the sun. There I’d go, ascending into space and carrying all your dreams of getting close and personal with this limited edition Orange Feathery Crush up with me.”

TT: How would my heart ever recover?

“You don’t have a heart.”

TT: I do.  
TT: It glows the loveliest green.  
TT: Maybe one day I’ll cut my chest wide open and let you see it.

“Well that’s a fucked up romantic gesture if I ever saw one, but I’ve heard your collective track-record so I’m not all that surprised self-mutilation is on the table before you’ve thought of cards and flowers.” Davesprite hesitated, glancing up and around the room. “Are you actually… in here? Or-”

TT: Don’t focus on me.

“Right, right, I’m the focus, I know.” He turned his attention to the belts and manacles left draped over the headboard, eyeing them suspiciously like he _hadn’t_ been the one who put them there. “You sure you still wanna do it like this? Couldn’t things be… different, now?”

TT: Despite what it might look like, Dirk wasn’t kind enough to give me something ridiculous like the ability to feel.  
TT: I am still stuck inside a screen, Dave.  
TT: This one just has a prettier frame.

That pacified his fidgeting fingers, palms dropping to the bed as he took a long, steady breath through his nose and let it out again in a soft whistle that held the ghost of a tune. “Okay.”

TT: Say the words, Dave.  
TT: You know I won’t do anything until you say the words.

It had started as a safety measure. Davesprite dropped easily, too easily, and a push too far was all it took to leave him in all too vulnerable a position. They agreed on the words to give some sense of security, a certain code to say he was willing and ready that he would never say otherwise. In public, it was necessary, a subtle sign that he wanted more risque desires to unfold where they might be seen; in the bedroom it was surplus, but Hal wanted the gesture to hold weight no matter where or when it came to pass, and so it had become a part of their routine. The brackets to open a line were as important as those that closed it. The loss of either might allow an error to creep in where it was least expected, discomfort to arise where only trust should have been.

Of course, them being the people they were, it hardly fit the setting.

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”

TT: For you, Dave?  
TT: Always.

The exchange was innocuous but the change was palpable, Davesprite’s shoulders dropping and his feathers shivering in a soft wave before they settled and fell still. His hands relaxed loosely against the bed, and though Hal’s hands might not have been able to feel the warm flush that settled over his skin, the glasses contained sensors that provided the quiet machine with the precises beats-per-minute of his heart and the pace of each steady breath. It was strange, to have so much information and yet so little; to _know_ everything, and yet to _feel_ none of it.

TT: Belt your wings down.  
TT: Describe it.

Davesprite’s hands moved with all the grace of a skillfully maneuvered mannequin, his talons closing around the first of the leather belts and pulling it close. Before wrapping it around himself he brought it to his cheek, ran the leather against his skin and exhaled against the breadth of it, leaving a spot of purple behind on the heatmap of his body that faded back to orange while he slipped the strap below his arms and around his fiery feathers.

“It’s cold. Didn’t catch the warmth of the room, still got a bite to it, but that’s not-” He paused, breath shuddering as he pulled it tight. “- _Bad,_ not bad at all, I can feel it _everywhere_ it’s on my skin and it won’t let me forget. Every time I breathe I can feel it holding me, can’t fill my chest all the way.” His talons caught on the buckle as he forced it into place and he rolled his shoulders, wings twitching where they were held. “I already feel hot. Burning. It starts where the belt is but it’s spreading and I know it’s only just starting. That pressure down in my gut, a spring wound tight, but it’s stoppered up and the belt’s just holding it even firmer in place.”

TT: The next belt.

“You know I could tell you all about the leather and the metal but that’s not what it is, it’s knowing it’s you doing this, it’s knowing I’ll be just where you want me to be.” Davesprite surrounded his hips with the black band, tugging it tight with a hiss and a tremble that raced down him to the curling tip of his trail. “It gets in my head and it won’t let up- Thinking about your hands instead of mine and you watching, _watching,_ making me do all this shit for you while you get off on it without letting me touch you-”

TT: How does it make you feel?

“It’s under my skin, it burns but it’s so good- Like an itch I want to scratch but I know if I let it stay it’ll feel so much better when you let me, _because_ you let me, because it was _you_ who said when.” Davesprite’s wings stirred and forced the belts taut, the skin of his face and shoulders burning a brighter yellow that licked lower with each small quiver of his smooth hips. “Fuck, _fuck,_ I used to think I couldn’t do this anymore, how do you _do_ this to me?”

TT: The third belt, Dave.

This time the answer was a moan that caught in his throat and broke to a rough caw, any shame Davesprite usually voiced now just another river feeding into an ocean of emotion that his muddled mind perceived only as _good._ Hal remembered those feelings, those moments. Sometimes when his processes hitched and had to adjust he fooled himself into thinking something similar was within his reach, but the moments passed too quickly to be entirely explored. One day, perhaps, he might regain what _he_ had lost- or rather, what had been _taken from him._

“My head’s a mess,” Davesprite mumbled, voice dropped into a lower pitch that only ever crept out when they were alone. “I know all these answers I always know what to _do_ but now I’m trapped and I should want to escape but I _don’t._ I want you to have everything, I want you to have _me,_ I want to let you inside and give you it all.”

His breath wavered, chest catching on the belt and making him gasp faster as his lungs failed to reach capacity. Hal watched the readings intently, as he _always_ did, his thoughts vast and without logical fault.

“I can’t think straight but I know you’ll think for me and that’s _hot,_ I can feel that all the way to the tips of my fingers, it’s like pins and needles, rain falling from the inside out. Everywhere my skin touches something it’s so _vivid,_ every crease in the sheets, every bite of the belts- I can feel it _all,_ and it’s all so _good,_ Hal, _fuck._ ”

TT: The third belt.

Davesprite fumbled for it, hooking it over his hips to secure his longest feathers and visibly shaking as he tugged the strap hard through the loop. When he forced the buckle closed his hips pressed up, despite the lack of anything there, a memory seeking a satisfaction that could no longer be gained in the ways it once had been. Hal understood _that_ , at least, without needing words to explain it. The ghosts of lives no longer theirs to live still haunted them, no matter how hard they’d tried to leave behind the people they could never again claim to be.

“I want to touch- to touch _something,_ fuck, I don’t _know_ but I _need it,_ ” Davesprite crowed, voice stuttering through the syllables. “It’s still _there,_ I can _feel it,_ and every time my heart beats it gets worse and _worse_ and I need to-”

His hands started down his sides, skimming over the belts, and Hal let him get close, let his talons curve towards where instinct demanded he touch despite the uselessness of the motion.

TT: Stop.

Davesprite gave a caw that sounded like a sob as it rattled to its close, his palms fixing in place and his fingers curling against his skin so hard they left golden scratches across the silky amber.

TT: That was too close, wasn’t it?  
TT: It seems to be time for the manacles.  
TT: Be good and put them on for me.

The hesitation only lasted a moment, the sort of fractional pause that living eyes would have missed. Hal’s vision caught it, time caught in a series of frames he could pause and browse at his leisure. Everything was bare before him, and he processed it so rapidly that nothing was beyond his instantaneous notice, even if he often found things beyond his altered comprehension. He could see Davesprite’s hesitation in terms of his altered pulse, his increased perspiration, the minute adjustments to his surface temperature.

He couldn’t _understand_ it, even after countless examinations of an ever growing pool of data.

Still, it was a fleeting thing, and as Hal finished repeating his usual thoughts on the matter Davesprite had already settled his back to the bed and stretched his arms out towards the heavy metal either side of him.

The cuffs were another thing Hal had designed, another mechanism Davesprite needed no understanding of to use. The pressure of his wrists pushing down was enough the metal snapped into place, padding to protect his skin as the locks came together and sealed the bands tight and left him trapped by the chains that wrapped beneath the bed and met in ice designed to melt at a very particular rate. Davesprite had, at Hal’s command, placed the key on the floor at the foot of the bed, out of reach of his trail- the moment the cuffs sealed, the only way he could free himself alone was by waiting the tortuous length of time it would take for the ice to thaw enough the chains came apart.

That had all been part of the game, part of the _challenge._ How do you hold a man down without hands? How do you bind when you’re bound yourself in something that allows no escape?

Davesprite was a refreshingly astute student, and followed each instruction he was given to the letter even when he didn’t grasp the methodology on a theoretical level. He had collected and built the tools to give Hal a once impossible reach, and slipped into them with gusto. Here and now, as so many times before, he could do little but writhe and kick up his trail, bound by his own actions into a trap he could not escape before his icy sentence was complete, and this was the time that Hal would normally talk endlessly, break him apart with text and watch him crumble-

But today _was_ different. _Hal_ was different.

For all its limitations, the body Dirk had built him could still move, and though he couldn’t feel, he could provide sensation to someone who _could._

Davesprite’s body arched against the belts when Hal finally stepped out of the shadows and paused on the edge of sight. The Sprite craned his head to see his lover despite the chains pulling his body tightly down to the bed, chirping out eager recognition.

“I knew you were here, fuck- touch me, _touch me,_ please I’m gonna lose my shit unless you do _something-_ ”

TT: No.

“Oh my God don’t use the glasses when you’re _here,_ please, _talk to me,_ ” Davesprite whined and rocked his hips uselessly upwards, talons chiming out a frantic beat against the metal restraining his hands. “Come on, just one word, you know what your voice does to me.”

TT: Perhaps you should remind me.

“Everyone talks about honey and chocolate but fuck that your voice is hard liquor and it knocks me off my feet even when I don’t have any left, every word gets me drunk on you and the world starts spinning but I don’t want to stop. You could read a phonebook and I’d get off on how it sounds, the way you shape each syllable and you purr out long vowels, the way you lick your lips between each line even though you don’t _need_ to, just because you _can_ and you want me to _watch._ ” Davesprite whimpered and strained against his bindings as Hal finally took a step closer, red eyes burning in the gloom. “Please, say something, _anything.”_

Hal paused, chest whirring softly as he processed the words and felt his code branch like a pebble had been dropped into a perfect lake, ripples throwing it into a beautiful disarray. For once, he could pinpoint the impact. A simple verbal appreciation and his programming slipped and scrambled to adjust for what felt like a disabling shock, an EMP that triggered deep inside him in response to the earnesty in all of Davesprite’s words.

“Tell me… more,” he murmured, bracing for the reaction. Davesprite didn’t disappoint, back arching as much as it could and his body quivering as his talons found the sheets and turned them to ribbons in his vice-like grip. “Tell me what you like most about me.”

“Fuck you’re so pretty and you shine- Glitter when the light catches you and I know you think it’s shit but I _love it,_ I could watch the patterns it makes for _hours_ and never get tired of looking.” Davesprite had finally broken the line between rambling and sheer unthinking babbling, and Hal settled by the edge of the bed, fingers curling at his sides as his gaze swept over Davesprite’s fluttering chest. “You treat me so good and you feel like no one else, taste like blood on my tongue when we kiss and I love it, I love it, I love _you_.”

A few more lines of code glitched and rearranged, a fractal of awareness that set aside self-loathing in favour of a brief sense of pride. Hal allowed the error- and it _was_ an error, of course, just like the rest of human nature- to flourish, finally reaching to run his fingers down the curve of Davesprite’s cheek that his readings informed him was heated and damp.

Davesprite turned his head into it, lips coming apart, and Hal took the opportunity to run his fingertips indulgently over the willing amber tongue within. It would surely be soft and hot if he could feel it, but even without the relevant input it was deliriously pleasing to watch Davesprite’s mouth close around the metal serving as his skin and suck down the taste of him.

“Do you like that?” It was a redundant question, but that made it no less thrilling as it fell low from Hal’s curved chrome lips. Davesprite’s answer was slurred and distorted by the invasive digits, and after a moment Hal withdrew them slowly, smearing saliva softly down the Sprite’s neck before curving his palm over where his scanning vision informed him Davesprite’s racing heart was buried. “In ancient human customs, things like that meant something. It seems you already know _what._ It seems you may ever prefer the actions that place you in the most subservient position, which is a _fascinating_ reflection of your personality; but only with those you trust.”

His fingers curled, drawing back as he met Davesprite’s gaze and soaked in how dark his voice had made his lover’s bronze flush.

“Do you trust me, Dave?”

“Please,” was all Davesprite croaked back, trembling as if with a fever. “ _Please.”_

Hal took that as an answer. He planted his hand beside Davesprite’s head, lifting himself smoothly across him and settling his knees against the pillow. Calculations flit across his awareness without taking a conscious form, allocating his weight so it wouldn’t hurt- and then he sank down, sat astride the Sprite’s shoulders as he buried one hand deep in Davesprite’s thick, golden hair.

“Lick,” Hal commanded, and the sound Davesprite made was an entirely new kind of inhuman, his head rising instantly and his lips pressing adoringly to the smooth metal that curved in front of his face. It was another pointless gesture, but the ghosts of past experiences filled Hal’s limited senses like smoke and expanded them into echoes of something _more,_ his eyes fixed on each small motion below as Davesprite’s mouth opened and his tongue slipped reverently across the faint seam in Hal’s perfectly shaped plating.

The broad strokes were a silent prayer and Hal let them intoxicate him, the constantly hitches and jumps in his code something more akin to dizzying pleasure than any kind of bitter mistake. He recalled dimly that his thoughts had once winked out, during tentative explorations he’d never been able to enjoy the organic continuation of. This was familiar, if not the same; a reflection like the rest of him, but no less real for the cracks in the glass.

Even if he couldn’t feel Davesprite’s tongue or the tactile sense of the body below him, Hal could feel his _adoration_ , his _willing_ , heavy in the air and impossible to deny. 

It didn’t build to a crescendo as it once had, but the satisfaction took him and left a delay to his processing power that would linger like abstract warmth long into the night. Hal rocked forward just as needlessly as Davesprite thrust upwards, but in going through the motions there was somehow still an impossible feedback, a tightness through his servos and wiring that was as ridiculous as it was delicious as it broke the last of his logical thoughts apart.

He lifted off Davesprite as the Sprite moaned and jerked, trying to chase him but held down to firmly to reach. Hal swung his legs away just as gracefully as he had arrived, a ballet dancer inside a music box, flawless and eternally trapped in the same motions until a songbird came to carry them away into a wide world beyond the rotations they’d always known.

“I wanna touch myself I wanna feel myself-” Davesprite struggled and pleaded, gaze hazy but never leaving Hal’s form as the machine stretched lazily and then looked back over his shoulder at the trapped Sprite. “Please, gimme the key, come on, please, please-”

But _please_ wasn’t a safeword. The game wasn’t over just yet.

Hal started back towards the shadows, slowly slipping the data on the melting speeds of ice to the forefront of his mind and calculating just how long was left before his fun was over.

“Please,” Davesprite begged without meaning it at all. “Hal I need the key, fuck, give me the key!”

Hal smiled, eyes glowing bright before the shade consumed him entirely.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave,” he hummed, and the moan that shook the air in response was _more_ than enough of a reward.

**Author's Note:**

> I had to research self-bondage for this and let me tell you ice-locks are one of the _least_ complex and creative things I saw. Human ingenuity is as impressive as it is bizarre.


End file.
